Jenrry Mejia’s Arm Injury Highlights Sore Spot for Mets’ Staff

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Jenrry Mejia last month. On Tuesday, he received a cortisone shot and was placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to Sunday.CreditRob Foldy/Getty Images

By Tim Rohan

April 7, 2015

WASHINGTON — Last year, as the Mets converted the right-handed starter Jenrry Mejia to a reliever, he would become anxious about not having a set schedule, about not knowing exactly when he would throw or enter games. He feared he would get hurt — again.

By that point, he had had Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow in 2011, and surgery to remove bone spurs from the same elbow in 2013. It was understandable that he would be apprehensive. As it turned out, his transition to a full-time role in the bullpen was an emphatic success, with Mejia saving 28 games and establishing himself as the Mets’ closer.

And sure enough, he did get hurt again, although this time it was not his elbow but a sports hernia, which was repaired last September. When he reported to spring training this year, he appeared to be fully healed — although he did not look particularly sharp in spring training, when performances by established players don’t mean all that much.

Instead, the Mets’ injury concerns were elsewhere, with two other pitchers — Josh Edgin and Zack Wheeler — emerging with elbow ligament injuries that required Tommy John surgery. No one seemed particularly worried about Mejia. That is, until the Mets’ season opener in Washington on Monday, when Mejia began warming up, felt tightness and pain in his throwing elbow and never entered the game.

In his absence, Buddy Carlyle, a journeyman reliever, picked up the save in the Mets’ 3-1 victory over the Nationals.

On Tuesday, after putting Mejia through tests in New York that included X-rays and a magnetic resonance imaging exam, the Mets announced that he had posterior inflammation in his right elbow. He received a cortisone shot, was told not to pitch competitively for at least 10 days and was placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to Sunday.

Given the alternative — still another announcement that still another Mets pitcher had been found to have a tear in his elbow requiring Tommy John surgery — the news had to be considered somewhat encouraging for the Mets. A person in baseball with knowledge of the Mejia situation went further than the team statement, maintaining that no structural damage was found in Mejia’s elbow.

Left unclear, however, was whether Mejia, 25, might need further testing when the inflammation presumably subsides.

Who could blame the Mets if they had feared the worst on Tuesday? In the last two years, five pitchers on their major league staff have required Tommy John surgery: Edgin, Wheeler, Matt Harvey, Bobby Parnell and Jeremy Hefner. And Mejia had the surgery four years ago.

With Mejia sidelined, the Mets are missing a large majority of their top relievers. Edgin is out until next season; Parnell, who had Tommy John surgery in April 2014, is carefully working his way back to a spot on the roster, perhaps by the end of the month; and Vic Black, who is still out with shoulder weakness, is hoping to be back relatively soon.

Jeurys Familia, the last man standing, will presumably fill in as the Mets’ closer. Erik Goeddel has been called up from the minors to take Mejia’s roster spot.

As for the Mets, after Tuesday’s day off, they will take on the Nationals with back-to-back marquee pitching matchups that will have Tommy John surgery as a subtext. On Wednesday, it will be Jacob deGrom versus Jordan Zimmermann, and on Thursday, Matt Harvey will make his first start since 2013 against none other than Stephen Strasburg.

All four are considered elite pitchers, and all four serve as reminders of the prevalence of elbow injuries, and surgery, among major league pitchers.

Zimmermann had the operation in 2009 and has made two All-Star Games since then. DeGrom had the surgery in 2010, and last season he emerged as the National League rookie of the year. Strasburg had the surgery in 2010, too, and has since blossomed into a bona fide ace. And Harvey was probably the best pitcher in baseball in 2013 until his elbow gave out.

Although it won’t read that way in the box score, those two days, in effect, will be Tommy John vs. Tommy John vs. Tommy John vs. Tommy John. That’s baseball in 2015.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Mejia’s Injury Highlights Sore Spot for Mets’ Staff. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe